PARADOXICAL

The faith chronicles

Thursday, August 03, 2006

 

Introduction to the gross anatomy of hatred


They say that hating someone puts you on equal footing with the object of your hatred. This brings me into thinking about the people I hate and, oh, how it makes me hate them all the more. My latent reaction to that is, Of course not! People despise someone because he/she is indeed despicable.

Another nasty thing they say about hate is that it is a kind of projection: the things you hate about the person are the very qualities you hate about yourself. So if you hate someone who giggles like a hyena, spreads lies about you like the devil, and always clad in rags, that means you yourself are a hyena, a cobra and a slob rolled into one, ha, ha, ha! (On second thought, that's not very funny.)

They also say that hate is a sign of frustration about your own deficiencies and inability. You hate your parents because you can't give them that new color TV they're asking for. You hate your brother because you can't find him a better job in your workplace. You hate yourself because you are not who you are supposed to be according to your personal timeline. You hate the world because you're helpless with it. Frankly, I find this thinking a bit illogical.

And then there's what they call righteous wrath, when you do the hating with the blessings of God. (Say it again?) Listen, it's like this: when, for example, I fume like an angry dragon over my male colleagues who habitually make a pass on all the pretty girls around when the whole wide world knows they are very much married (the men), and it is I who is better suited for the role (the one making a pass).

Of course there are other types of and reasons for loathing. But all types of hatred, when expressed, is such an exhilarating feeling. Though I don't remember myself breaking all the glasses at home (I don't think I could've afforded it; hatred is affected by socioeconomic factors, too, you know), I can vividly remember tearing the pages of a book with unprecedented violence, which gave me a kind of relief perhaps only comparable to that of a witch and her torture doll.

But when hate is kept hidden, you're no different from a volcano that is forbidden by law from ever exploding. Yet even hidden hatred has a way of outing itself - through gossip, cursing, lies, mockery, insult and flattery, through wrinkles, depression, and possibly, disease.

Looking over my "hateography," I think I've been both a juvenile and, um, a suave guy when it comes to hating someone. My favorite form of expressing hatred has been through sulking and complaining to a third party and my favorite form of repressing it has been through silence, by giving someone the cold shoulder, so to speak.

That's a bad idiom, though, cold shoulder. The first time I gave someone the icy-cool treatment big-time, I got to expend lots of thermal energy. The object of my hellish hatred then was my college roommate Glen, with whom I had a falling out due to the pettiest of reasons: of course I couldn't exactly remember which. Long-term pent-up emotion got me so tired that one day, when I saw Glen cross my path on the street, with only the two of us on such a lonely road it was absolutely impossible to avoid each other, we simply broke into laughter, and then we're friends again.

I'm so tired of hating people. I'm so very tired of hating the world. I wanna hear a new song, never mind if it's the mushiest of mush. Whenever I think back of all the years I've lived in recent memory, I only need to remind myself of the people I hated so much that I refused talking to them for a year. In 1997, it was the company I was working for; in 1998, my immediate supervisor; in 1999, a close friend who treated me in public like a turd; in the turning of the zeroes, someone who owed me mucho dinero; and gad!, into the next millennium, I can see the distinct face of yet another enemy.

I wish for something corny next year if not this year: I wish for love. Don't be silly. Of course loving someone is easy, but loving your enemies? Hah! Now, you're listening.

And if I ever have to hate anyone, it is because I couldn't contain my love. I want to be like that character in Graham Greene's The End of the Affair who likes to hate so much because he loves just as much, albeit forbiddenly. He says (roughly), "I measure my love by my hate. I hate your dress because they always lie so close to you. I hate your stockings for the way they kiss your legs. I hate your shoes because they always take you away from me." Oscar awardee Ralph Fiennes got to act out this part in a fine movie. Hmm, I think I'm beginning to dislike him. (Wait, have I included envy on the list?)

5.31.2000


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